Billionaire Bill Gates Has 66% of His Foundation's $45 Billion Portfolio Invested in 3 Outstanding Stocks

Adam Levy, The Motley Fool

Sun, Jun 29, 2025, 6:35 PM 7 min read

• Bill Gates has donated billions of dollars to his foundation since 2000.

• Warren Buffett has donated to the foundation since 2006.

• The portfolio reflects the approaches of both Gates and Buffett.

• 10 stocks we like better than Microsoft ›

Bill Gates is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with a net worth exceeding $100 billion. What makes that even more impressive is that he's donated more than $60 billion of his wealth to the Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

Much of those donations have come straight from Gates' personal portfolio, which includes a significant stake in Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), the company he founded, as well as several important diversifying investments. Outside of Microsoft, Gates appears to be an investor focused on value, taking lessons from his longtime friend and former Gates Foundation donor and trustee, Warren Buffett.

As a result, the Gates Foundation portfolio reflects the combination of Gates and Buffett's investment styles, including maintaining a highly concentrated portfolio of top investments. As such, nearly two-thirds of the foundation's trust fund is held in just three outstanding stocks.

Gates first donated Microsoft stock to the foundation upon its founding in 2000, and he's steadily added more shares over time. And while the foundation has often sold some of its shares to fund grants, it's managed to build a substantial stake in the tech company. As of the end of the first quarter, the trust held about 28.5 million shares. Those shares are worth more than $14 billion as of late June.

Microsoft stock has soared to an all-time high in recent weeks on the back of its strength in artificial intelligence (AI). After a $10 billion investment in OpenAI in early 2023, Microsoft's Azure became the leading cloud computing platform for developers looking to take advantage of leading-edge AI models. It's exhibited market-leading growth since then, including 33% growth in its most recent quarter. What's more, Microsoft management says the business remains supply constrained as demand remains high, so it's likely to maintain that growth rate for some time.

Microsoft has also benefited from integrating AI into its enterprise software business. Microsoft 365 commercial revenue has grown at a double-digit pace, bolstered by selling more seats at higher average prices.

Microsoft has developed specialized AI assistants, or Copilots, for applications, including GitHub and Dynamics 365, which help businesses get more out of the software. It also offers a Copilot Studio, which allows businesses to use their own data to create specialized AI assistants.